The Missing Chips
by Pepper Gem
Summary: A short story to honor Chouji Akimichi on his birthday!


**Celebrating Chouji Akimichi's Birthday!**

**The Missing Chips**

One bright morning, the morning of May 1st, Chouji's eyes popped open long before his alarm clock went off.

"Yeah! It's my birthday! I finally turn 15! I wonder if Asuma-sensei will buy me BBQ pork to celebrate!"

He tidied his hair, secured his headband, dressed himself and sped to the kitchen cupboards in search of his usual breakfast: omelet-flavored potato chips.

His eyes widened with extreme shock.

"ZOMG!! THE CHIPS ARE GONE!! _ALL_ OF THEM!!"

He zoomed around in circles, about to tear out the very hair on top of his head and scatter it all over the floor. Soon realizing that running around wouldn't bring the myriad of missing chips back into his home, he gathered his sanity and stepped outside the door.

"Crumbs!!" Chouji examined them closely and determined their kind merely by their texture. "The miso-pork-ramen flavored ones that sat right next to the omelet ones…maybe if I follow the trail of crumbs, I'll find the demon of a thief who stole my chips!"

Chouji ran like a hound dog hot on a scent after the trail of chip crumbs for about ten minutes, until he entered an alleyway with a note tacked to a brick wall.

"A note? Could it be a clue?!"

Chouji picked the note off of the wall and read it:

'Chouji-kun! Come by my place when you read this! I didn't want anyone who came by your house to read it so, after stealing all your chips and making a trail with the crumbs, I hid the note here! I have a 'surprise' for you so come soon! Teehee! –Ino'

A smile came across Chouji's face. "A cute girl with a surprise for me?! Heck yeah, I'm off to Ino's place!!"

Chouji paused in mid-run. "Where's Ino's place?"

He marched to Shikamaru's house to get directions and knocked on the door. Shikaku, his father, answered.

"What a drag…Shikamaru's not _here_…" Shikaku plainly told Chouji. "The brat said something about going to Ino's."

"Oh! Mister Nara, do you happen to have Ino's address?"

"I probably do, and it's probably in my house somewhere, but it was probably taken by shikamaru because he probably _also_ forgot her address. But If I ever did happen to have it, going to get it for you would probably be too dang troublesome, so I_ probably_ don't think I'm going to."

Shikaku shut the door.

"Honey! That's no way to treat a visitor! Here, I have Miss Yamanaka's address right here! Give it to chouji now!!" Mrs. Nara could be heard through the door.

The door opened again, and Shikaku handed Chouji a piece of paper.

"Troublesome_…_" Shikaku shut the door again.

Chouji chuckled and opened the folded piece of paper that said 'Ino Yamanaka's Address'. As he looked inside, he discovered it wasn't Ino's address, but another tip:

'Chouji, if you're reading this, you're a dimwit. I had to waste my time writing this note for you without even knowing if you'd need It or not. Go to Sasuke's place if ya want directions. It's a no-brainer for a girl to give their crush their address. Even if Sasuke didn't want it, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would coldly shred it up and throw it away. Oh and, to keep you from all the confusion of having two address-hunts, here's Sasuke's. –Shikamaru'

Sighing, Chouji walked the long walk to Sasuke's apartment and knocked on the door.

"What do you want?" Sasuke opened it with a very annoyed expression. "Since when do you talk to me?"

"Since I needed Ino's address... Shikamaru told me you might have it."

"No, I don't have it. I shredded it and threw it away the moment she gave it to me. Ask one of the other girls - Sakura lives right over there." Sasuke pointed down the street, quickly slamming the door shut while Chouji wasn't looking.

"Sasuke's so cold…" Chouji mumbled as his stomach growled. He walked down the street and knocked on Sakura's door.

"Hello?" Sakura opened the door with a bright smile. "Chouji! What can I do for you?"

Chouji blushed a little and scratched his head. "I uhh…well I just kinda need Ino's address."

"Oh, I can do that for you."

Sakura grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil that were sitting in the entryway and wrote Ino's address quickly from memory.

"If you don't mind my asking, Sakura-chan, why do you know Ino's address by heart if you hate her guts?" Chouji asked as the pink-haired girl handed him the piece of paper.

"_Because_ I hate her guts. I can throw stuff at her window and haunt the witch all night with genjutsu."

Chouji shivered with fear and said he'd best be off.

Grinning widely, he used all of his strength to run for Ino's house. According to the piece of paper, she lived on the other side of the village.

By the time he got there, Chouji was breathing heavily and sweating from the brow – needless to say, he was also starving by this time. Suddenly, he realized it wasn't Ino's house – it was the Hyuuga household!

"Ch-chouji-kun?" Hinata's soft voice came from the front porch.

"I'm…-huff-…Looking…-huff-…f-for…-huff-…Ino-chan…"

"Hinata! Who are you talking to?!" Neji yelled from the inside. Hinata became tense.

"J-just Chouji-k-kun!"

"Chouji?" Neji walked out of the house. He noticed Hinata's face had panic written all over it, so he whispered in her ear, "You have to go along with it! Asuma-sensei is _paying _us!!"

Hinata nodded. "Ch-chouji…Kiba-kun might know where she lives. He was paired with her on a mixed-team mission a few times."

"I can go get his address if you need," Neji offered.

"No thanks! Kiba doesn't live far from me."

Chouji ran for Kiba's house and knocked on the door. He was attacked by an entire pack of oversized ninja-dogs.

"Ouch!!" Chouji tried running from the dogs but they kept biting and clawing him. "Nikkudan Sensha!!"

Chouji became a huge human boulder and crushed all the dogs, who poofed into thin air when injured.

"Doggy shadow clones?" Chouji flopped over onto the ground, completely out of breath. When he opened his eyes and cooled down a bit, Akamaru was laying on his stomach.

"Hi…Akamaru…"

"Bark! Bark!"

Kiba rushed over to help Chouji up.

"Sorry about that…" Kiba laughed and Akamaru barked again.

"It's…-huff- ok……"

"So what do you need, Chouji?"

"Ino's address."

"I have Hinata's if you want to ask her-"

"I was JUST THERE and she told me to come _here_."

"Oh. Well then. I don't have it. Maybe try Tenten?"

SoOOOoo, Chouji scurried over to Tenten's, covered in blood, sweat and tears. He knocked on the door.

LEE answered.

Chouji was about to go insane, but Tenten eventually walked up behind Lee and informed that he was visiting.

"What do you need, Chouji-san? Whatever you need, I shall get it for you faster than lightning with the power of youth, as I am the handsome green devil of the Leaf!"

"I need Ino's address," answered a tired Chouji.

"Well, I don't have it. I never hang out with her," Tenten said. "Asuma-sensei would have it for sure."

"I would've tried him a long time ago if I knew _his_ address."

"I'm sure Gai-sensei has it, then! He has everything!" Lee pointed a finger into the air. "I know where he lives. It's not too far. Just go down the street, over the bridge, past the hot springs, take a left, go straight for a mile or two, then take a right, then take the shortcut that'll be on you're left, then go around the Hokage building, then go straight until you come across an apartment complex, and Gai-sensei lives _upstairs_."

Simply hearing the word 'upstairs' would be enough to turn Chouji off the idea.

Tenten sweat-dropped. "Kakashi lives across the street. Go find him."

Lee paused. "But tenten…" Tenten shut the door and Chouji overheard Lee arguing about how Gai was better than Kakashi.

Chouji found Kakashi's house.

"Hello? Oh, Chouji-kun. What brings you here? You look pretty worn out…"

"I need Ino's address, please please please!"

"I'm afraid I don't have it, I'm sorry. Try Asuma-san, okay?"

Kakashi noticed the flat look on Chouji's face.

"I do have his address…" Kakashi went back inside his home, wrote it down and handed the paper to Chouji. His eyes lit up and he thanked Kakashi.

He took off at an incredible 0.1 miles per hour for Asuma's house, which wasn't too far. Once he got there, he almost passed out with hunger, and wearily knocked on the door.

No one answered.

He knocked again.

Still no answer.

He sighed and, with a very depressed air about him, looked at his feet. He blinked a little. "What's that?"

there was a note at his feet, so he picked the paper up and read it.

"Ino's Address:…" It began. Chouji leaped with joy and used every little bit of energy he had left to walk to the address.

"I get a surprise from a really cute girl! I get a surprise from a really cute girl!" he sang as he skipped along with a burst of energy that seemed to come from nowhere.

He arrived at her house and knocked on the door.

"CHOUJI!!" Ino screamed and flew out the door, "What took you so long?!"

She paused and laughed when she saw how beat-up, run-down and tired he was.

Chouji didn't see anything in her hands. "What's the surprise?" he asked, beginning to think that there wasn't going to be one.

Ino pushed Chouji around to face away from her house, and then stood behind him and covered his eyes.

"Walk!" she commanded him, and he did. She guided Chouji through the busy streets of Konoha until they finally arrived at the doors of a very familiar building.

Ino, telling Chouji to still keep his eyes shut, snuck in the building whilst sticking a note to the outside of the door.

"Open your eyes!" Ino shouted from the inside.

Chouji blinked. Before him was a large wooden door and a note. He opened it. On it were three letters:

B, B and Q.

"BEEEEEEE BEEEEEEEEE KYUUUUUUUUU!! I GET BBQ!!" Chouji proclaimed as he shoved the doors open. Before him were all of his fellow nin, senseis, family and even the Hokage. Oh, and I forgot to mention: fifty bags of potato chips and all-you-can-eat-BBQ-pork were there, as well.

"**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHOUJI**!!" everyone in the restaurant shouted at once.

Chouji's eyes began to get all watery.

"Asuma! Ino! Shikamaru!"

"Hey!" the greeted him and made a spot for him at a booth. Everyone else sat down and ordered food, too.

"How'd it go?" Asuma asked Chouji.

"Huh? You know about everything I went through?"

"I planned it!" Asuma chuckled.

"Yeah, he really is a dog-gone slave driver…" Shikamaru whined.

"He made you work so that you'd be pretty empty when you got here. That way you'd actually be hungry enough to have the right to eat all of this," Ino laughed.

Chouji cried with joy. "So much BBQ pork…and my chips!!"


End file.
